Mixed up in the head
by MyHairHurts
Summary: Enjoyed some genderswaps. Great stuff, but it's been done. So I wanted to try my own twist. Not slash. Some EvilSam! And yeah, there's an OC but I'm not a romance writer.
1. Prologue

AN: This is where I talk to much. You don't NEED to read this, but I'm giving a couple of fair warnings. I hate to give spoilers, but I know there are slash fans that are likely to be disappointed by this story. So you slash fans better appreciate me saving your time and telling you straight up, it's not slash. I'm participating in NaNoWriMo and after reading a few genderswap stories, I wanted to explore identity in gender. I'm a little tired of the boys genderswapping and there are lots of great stories out there already that have already covered it. This is story is a mix of OFC and OMC. Heads up, OFC/OMC is going to stay in the one body. I have a bad habit of spoon feeding my readers. I want to give more space for readers to draw their own conclusions as to what the character's motivations are. If you catch me spoon feeding yet again. Please slap me. I did Nanwrimo a few years back. With the time limit, I found it extremely motivating and reached 75k in 30 days. But I wasn't writing fanfiction and I question the quality of my work. Anyway, I'm enjoying myself a prologue and a chapter and half in so far since starting yesterday. I have a plan for where this is going. The question is, can I make my beginning reach my intending end? Eeek! I hope so!

Disclaimer: I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm placing bets how long it will take me to break with cannon. Apple pie I break it faster than you can pronounce sesquidalian correctly. Oh and I don't own... well supernatural and all that jive. You already know all this shit, why are you even reading the disclaimer?

Prologue

Three days in a cage, in this foreign body and these two bitches, sorry witches, came and went with barely a glance his way. The spell they had cast on him had backfired and they didn't seem to particularly care. "No, no, that's the wrong one. Black cat bones. Those are infant bones." The smell in the basement was raunchy. Spices, blood (more specifically his blood), fermented rotting vegetation and peanut butter from the peanut and jelly sandwiches they fed him earlier. Well, threw at him.

He inwardly gagged at the imagery from inside his cage. Apparently there was little difference between their place of food storage and spell ingredients. It all came down here. So, maybe he shouldn't have yelled at her for hitting the back of his motorbike and nearly killing him. But coming back later and doing this to his body was... just all kinds of wrong and inappropriate and extreme. He didn't deserve this. And then she'd had the nerve to be disappointed that he made a pretty woman. Still, the woman looked strangely familiar. He couldn't place her.

The basement door flew open and two men stormed in and down the stairs guns drawn. Sounds clapped against the brick walls and he covered his ears and ducked his head.

"Hunters," Clare accused. They didn't correct her. Seemed by hunter, they weren't talking about someone that hunted and killed animals. There was always the hope that they killed witches. Could Ted really be that lucky after the string of bad luck he had already come by?

A battle ensued that left Ted confused. People were being moved by telekinetic powers and there were bursts of green light. And then the two women lay dead in a pile.

"That was too easy." The first hunter said suspiciously.

"They've been struggling with lack of power for a few days. They used up all their juice on me. Could you get me out of this cage already?"

The two hunters paused sharing a look. "What did they do to you, to use up that much power?"

Ted squirmed uncomfortably in the cage. "We don't need to talk about that."

Becoming inpatient quickly, the hunter's words were curt. "If you don't tell us what they did, there's no telling if we can fix it."

Hope surged. "They... they mademeawoman." He mumbled. It was hard work talking around the golf ball size lump in his throat.

"They did what?"

"They uh... they turned me... into a woman. Guess this is what I would have turned out like without my Y chromosome." He made a very attractive woman from what he could see of his reflection in the doggy bowl of water they had left him. It was possible he was wrong. He wasn't getting a very good look at himself from water in a doggy bowl.

The hunters facial expressions weren't very reassuring. Ted instantly wished he hadn't told them. He didn't have a clue what he was going to do. Go home? No one would recognize him. He couldn't very well go home and tell his parents he was turned into a woman. They would never believe him. Never. But he didn't have any ID. No money. Nothing.

"I'm not sure we can do anything about that, but we can ask around. Maybe someone knows something." The hunter unlocked the cage while his friend checked the witches bodies. "The name's Christian Campbell and that's my cousin, Johnny."

"Ted Wickham." He said in his soft girly voice that he deeply wished hadn't come out so breathless. It just felt so good to accept Christian's hand as he pulled him out of the cage.

A polite smile entered Christian's face. "Why'd they turn you into a woman?"

"I flipped out on her," he jerked his thumb over to one of the bodies. "When she ploughed into the back of my motorbike. She could'a killed me. I live in my parents basement. That night she came into my room and did a spell. She got even more pissed when the spell didn't turn out how she wanted, so she and her bitch sister kidnapped me and locked me down here. Who knows how long they would have kept me down here if you hadn't shown up." They both looked down. The pyjama's he had been wearing when he was transformed into a woman were too large for his hips and had fallen, spilling just below his knees. Luscious feminine legs were exposed. Ted quickly let go of Christian's hand and pulled his pyjama bottoms back up.

Looking up he saw the two men grinning. "No need to be modest."

Ted glared. "Just because it's not my body doesn't make it not my body. Wait..." He shook his head and stopped trying to work it out. The hunters had started looking around the room taking inventory. "Look, what do I do while I wait for a cure? I don't have any ID. I can't show up on my parents porch like this. I don't know the first thing about being a woman and-" His voice building with anger as his thoughts collected.

"And you feel emasculated and pissed off?" Johnny finished for him.

Yes. Ted realized abruptly. That's exactly what he was feeling. He gave a short nod shaking out waist length dirty blonde hair.

"Listen kid, you don't want to go down that path. You're a man under those pretty eyes. Act like one. You figure it out. We rescued you, but we ain't your goddamn babysitters." Johnny mocked him.

Ted's jaw tensed and pain shot through him as real as anything that he had felt when he'd come off his bike four days ago. Ramrod stiff he marched up the stairs, one hand clutching the waist of his pyjama bottoms and the other holding the rail as his muscles stretched out from their cramped quarters. This wasn't the end of it. He was going to start hunting witches. Even if it killed him.

He found some clothes from the woman's closet upstairs and packed a bag of her clothes up. Except for the panties. Ted was going to have to buy his own. He stole money from her purse and some jewellery she found in a jewellery box. He could sell those off.

He heard talking downstairs and came to a stop to eavesdrop.

"There's no way they could have turned a man into a woman. There aren't any spells like that. Our family have been hunting for centuries. If they could, we would've heard of it."

A sigh. "Yeah, so whaddaya reckon?"

A pause. "I think... I think she was in that cage a whole lot longer than she thinks. She was telling the truth." She? She? Ted is a he. Ted is a he in a girl's body. "She's so pale and her hair is so long. I think those two bitches broke the girl." Ted's heart sank. It wasn't true. Ted was Ted. He knew it deep down. He was a man. Those two witches turned him into a woman.

"So why does she think she's really a man?"

"She cracked. She needed something or someone stronger than her to protect her. She probably already had childhood trauma or something. She wanted a man to protect her so she became that man."

"You think she's gone split personality disorder a' some kind."

"Yeah," a sadness creeping into the voice. "that's exactly what I think. Shame. She's fuck hot."

Ted didn't stick around to hear any more. He slipped on a pair of the witches shoes that incidentally, didn't fit and walked out the door. He used the credit card to get a motel room and sat staring at a wall for hours.

AN: Uploading more. I could probably have used more prose, but I'm kind of in a hurry right now. Maybe in December I could go back over this and clean it up. You're getting the bare bones right now.


	2. What Am I?

AN: If you hadn't guessed, I talk too much. I'm editing on the fly. Excuse me, but like I said before... nanwrimo. 50k in 30 days. Think you could go easy on me? Think of it this way. Even if you don't leave me reviews, I've still gotta get off my arse and write it anyway. *sigh* Yes, I have thought about their actions and responses. At the very least, I am giving thought to what the characters are thinking off screen and unrelated to the OC.

Disclaimer: I own inappropriate and explicit thoughts that I'm trying not to destroy this story with. I'm sorry for that by the way. I tried to keep it to a minimum. And I don't own Supernatural and... stuff. Insert whatever is supposed goes in these disclaimers.

What Am I?

Chapter 1

He bought underwear and socks and rugged boots. He had taken note of what the hunters were wearing. It took a month to find a hunt. He admittedly knew nothing about hunting or what he was dealing with, but he saw something off about the news reports that he had to check out. A month of a motel room with mildew scented sheets and men leering at him and talking to no one. A lot of staring silently at walls while internally screaming. He had been learning to find his centre of gravity in this new body. He had bought a gun and gone for lessons. He had experienced the joys of his first period. He had known depression at depths he had never known possible. He had found a job as a waitress. He wasn't very good. He failed to be friendly and couldn't remember orders and got tables mixed up. If this hunt hadn't come up, he probably would have been fired any time now.

Which brought him back to the case. Five bodies in the same spot on the white rapids. One survivor from white water rafting swore she saw a Native Indian girl in traditional dress pulling two paddlers down into the water from her raft.

Ted had tracked an Indian 'Christian' graveyard that had lost all of it's head stones. It was 50 yards out from an abandoned Catholic reform school. Out of options, he took a shovel and began digging. Blisters began to form on his soft hands. His back ached. And he didn't have a damn clue what he was going to do once he dug up that body. Commune with the spirit? What the hell was he doing? But he didn't have any better ideas. So he kept digging. It was slow going. He was sure the earth was compacted and filled with rocks. This was worse soil than in most place right?

Strange noises in the woods caused him to jump nearly out of his skin. The smell of wet earth, rotting vegetation and dusk reached him. Cold damp air sunk into his bones. Images of a sticky, rotting corpse kept rolling through his mind despite all of his efforts to beat them away. Sweaty and tired, Ted kept on digging. Slowly but surely getting somewhere.

"What are you doing here?" A hard gravelly voice demanded to know.

"Whaah!" Ted let out a single, loud hoarse scream that was unmistakeably female. He had never felt so not male as he did right now, in the dark with a strange man questioning him. He jumped back and his back hit the edge where he had been digging and he fell down into the dirt.

"Hey, hey, we're not gonna hurt you. Dean, did you really have to scare her like that?"

Ted scrambled out of the grave and pulled his 9mm out on them in the light of his lantern. He saw two large men, dressed much like the Campbell's and in an instant they both had drawn their own guns on him sooner than he could react. He yelped again, his heart thundering in his chest and his breath coming in short fast gasps. Time seemed to slow down as he could only focus on the two men and the two men alone.

"Whoa!" Dean gave an amused ice breaking grin. "No need to shoot us. Can we talk about this?"

"W-what are you doing here?" Ted could kick himself. He was sure that if he was in his own body, he would have played this much cooler. But suddenly he felt smaller. More vulnerable and he didn't like it one bit. Probably because he _was_ smaller and these two guys were huge. They were bigger than him in his own body. It was terrifying. He expected to run into a ghost. Not two massive dudes. "I'm not desecrating these bodies. I swear."

Dean and his friend nodded understandingly. "Let's put our guns away and we can talk about this. What do you say?"

Ted's breathing slowed down a little with his calm, low voice. What was he? A farm animal being calmed down by a voice? He wanted to rebel against his words but he was making sense. "There are two of you and one of me."

"Okay, well I'm not going to do anything about that, but I can be the first to lower my gun. We're not here to hurt you." The taller man responded.

"What are you here for?"

"You want answers, you have to put your gun away first." Dean sounded like he was talking to a goddamn kid. Ted wasn't a kid. But what did you call a man that lived in his parents basement?

"What's your name?" He decided to ask the other man. He wanted to have some sense of these two men. Headlines of women's dead bodies being found in dumpsters rattled around in his head. He didn't want to be one of those women he had been seeing in the news for most of his memory.

"Sam. What's your name?"

"Ted."

They paused on his name but moved past it quickly. "Nice to meet you Ted. Can we talk now?" Sam asked with soft, sweet, imploring eyes. It was hard to refuse him and he wasn't asking for anything unreasonable.

Watching closely, they all put their guns back into their waistbands behind their backs, Ted putting on the safety as he did so. He didn't want to blow open a buttock.

"So, why are you digging up this grave?" Dean inquired lightly.

"You'll think I'm crazy." Ted admitted.

"Lay it on me. I promise to hear you out."

Ted took a deep breath. "I noticed the deaths going on at the rapids. I think the ghost of an Indian girl is causing them and I don't know what to do about it, but I thought... well... it probably sounds stupid but I have a gut feeling if I have her bones... I can do something about this. Make it stop."

He gave her an appraising look and then looked at his friend. "And what were you planning to do with those bones?"

Ted grimaced. "Well, I hadn't exactly figured out that part out yet. It's just, people are dying. And I'd rather be crazy doing something right than be normal and stand by doing nothing. This town is deaths waiting room and I'm done waiting."

Then he said something Ted hadn't been expecting, as Sam turned his back on them and walking away, brought back a large duffel bag out from behind a tree. "You want some help?"

"Really? You don't think I'm crazy?" Joy flooded up.

"You're not crazy. You're on the right track. But you dig up the bones without knowing what to do with them, you'll wake that spirit up and it will kill you. If it pops up, stay behind me and Sam." He pulled off a layer down to his t-shirt as Sam lay out shovels, two shotguns and gerry cans of gasoline and... salt?

Maybe Ted should be worrying that they were the crazy ones- unless... "Are you hunters?"

They froze, before turning to look at him. "Where'd you learn about hunters?" Sam asked him.

"That's what the witch called the men that got me out of the cage I was trapped in."

"What were the witches keeping you for?" Dean asked curiously but ensued digging instead of waiting for his answer.

"I don't know. They took some blood." Ted shrugged. Did it matter?

Sam dropped down into the hole and began digging while Dean smirked up at him. "Virgin?"

Ted blushed brightly. He didn't like to advertise that he was a 23 year old virgin. Guys always made fun of him for it.

Dean chuckled and started digging. "Lots of spells call for freshly spilled virgins blood. You've got that look about you."

"Dean!" Sam growled at him. Dean grumbled but started digging.

"You did good. I mean, not that I think you should go hunting after things you don't know the first thing about. But that was some solid work figuring this out. What made you think to look for the bones?" Dean continued talkative as he dug. He seemed to be relatively amiable.

"I watched the witches put some spells together. They always seemed to involve the bones of something. I figured bones must have some paranormal value."

Dean grunted in approval. Ted looked around. This was really strange. Minutes ticked by. "I should be helping. This is my dig. Doesn't feel right watching you guys dig for me."

"You're five feet down. How long did it take you to get that far?"

"I don't know... the sun was still up when I started."

The hunters looked at each other. One looking to be in his mid twenties and the other closer to Ted's age. They returned to digging. "You've done enough, let us finish this. How about you light this hole up?" He looked up at Ted and his face changed to alarm in front of Ted's eyes. "Duck!"

Ted dropped and heard shrieking. Sam and Dean had seemingly instantly produced shotguns and were firing at the dark haired water spirit, taking turns they scrambled out of the grave.

"Ted! Now would be a good time to start digging."

Not having to be told twice, Ted took over. He jumped down and drove the shovel deep into the earth and filled it up with as much soil as he could. He chucked it out of the grave and he kept going. He could hear the shotguns firing above him and scuffling and shouting. It drove him to dig furiously, opening up his blisters and causing sharp pain. He ignored it and continued digging until he hit a thunk sound. Wood! He swung the shovel down on it hard, but instead of a broken coffin, he faced the spirit.

Standing directly in front of him, a few inches shorter, was a soaking wet, black haired spirit. Ted couldn't help it. He screamed. Again. He didn't have time to consider whether he would have screamed if he were still in his male body. The spirit's arm shot into Ted's mouth and water flooded his mouth, throat and lungs. Panic surged through him until the spirit dissipated from Sam's shot blasting through it.

Ted collapsed on the spot wrenching up lungs full of water.

"Are you okay?" Sam asked as he helped pull him out of the grave.

Dean was already breaking apart the coffin and Sam was firing at the spirit again.

"Pour that in!" Dean growled at Ted.

Pour what in? Ted couldn't stop coughing. Everything was happening so fast and his chest hurt so much. He kept trying to get a breath in but it was nearly impossible. Dean got out and snatched up the gerry can and started pouring it into the grave. Sam was slammed into a tree with a grunt. Ted raised arms defensively as the spirit struck at him again. Dean jumped in between them and was flung across another grave.

Ted sluggishly grabbed the shotgun and tried to fire but nothing happened. He met the spirits eyes before it tried to drown him again. Sam fired into the spirit and Dean was already pouring the second bottle of gas on the corpse.

It was possible Ted was about to die of fear or maybe faint. His breaths were shallow rasping things. Everything was happening so fast even as time had slowed down for the pain in his chest. He struggled to keep up with everything happening faster than he could put the pieces together. The spirit arrived to attack just as Dean realized the shotgun wasn't working because he was out of bullets. Sam fired again and Dean produced matches. In an instant, the corpse went up in flames and the spirit screeching combusted magically.

With effort, Ted pulled himself back to his feet, willing himself not to faint. But he started hacking again.

"You okay?" A soft voice asked.

Everything became white and the grass was soft beneath his head. Two voices spoke urgently. He was moving. No, someone was moving him. Instantly, he woke to a transparent mask on his face and many people talking and bright lights and beeping. He coughed some more. He was just in the graveyard. Where did all of these lights and people come from? He tried to look around, but all went black.

The pain his chest had subsided. Light touched through his eyelids before he tried to open them. They flickered momentarily.

"She's awake!" I'm a he.

"Call the nurse."

There were noises around the room. He pulled the mask from his face and looked around his surroundings. "What happened?" He asked in a hoarse female voice. Would he ever get used to having a woman's voice?

"You were dry drowning. Water entered your lungs and your larynx closed to protect you from more water obstructing your breathing." The nurse was about to say more but Ted interrupted her.

"Where are the two men who brought me here?"

The nurse looked annoyed. "We have to check some things-"

"I'll co-operate as soon as I get to talk to them. I need to thank them."

Not really happy with the patient's demands, the nurse reluctantly gave in. As she headed for the door, the two hunters were already standing there. They parted to let her by and then walked up to Ted's bed.

"I need training."

"Wow, thank you for saving my life Dean." He said in a falsetto sarcastically. "All in a days work-" His voice dropping low.

"Dude seriously?" Ted growled trying to sit up, resting on his elbows. "Thank you for saving my life. But I can't go home and I can't ignore this bad stuff happening. I'm hunting and I don't know what I'm doing and I'm gonna get myself killed. I need a mentor. Are you gonna help me or write me off like the other two hunters did?"

The two men looked at each other, under Ted's watchful eye. They obviously didn't like his plan. "Why don't you just go back to your vanilla life?"

"None of your business."

"It's our business if you want us to train you." Sam insisted.

"This is a really bad idea." Dean grumbled.

"I'm gonna do it with or without your help. Besides, I'm pretty sure I've got an instinct for these things."

"You didn't know the shotgun was outta shells."

"Neither did you! You didn't keep count of your shots jackass."

Dean's cheeks tinted slightly red but he pushed on. "This isn't any kind of life. You can build a new life. Find a man. Pop out some babies. You don't want to go down this path."

The idea of getting pregnant and having babies hadn't even occurred to Ted. He couldn't imagine doing something any freakier. "I'm not making babies! They fucked my life up, I'm gonna stop them from fucking up more lives." He hissed.

Sam and Dean looked disappointed. The blank room was silent. "We'll talk." Dean raised a finger in warning at her before he left the room with his friend.

Ted's mind went back to baby making while the nurse returned with the doctor. They annoyed him with a check up while she vividly imagined the reproductive possibilities of his body. And just like that, for a split second, he'd thought of himself as a her. He grit his teeth. He was a man in a girls body. Not a girl. He would never be a girl, he told himself. The explicit image of an erect penis entering her vagina, caused him to flush from head to toe in embarrassment and arousal. His underwear moistening beneath him. That was confusing and disturbing. Body parts responding in all the wrong ways. He dug his mind out of that hole and focused on what the nurse was asking him. He was a he. He was a he. He was a he. The mantra repeated itself near desperately in his mind. He wasn't willing to entertain the possibility of accepting a new life... as a woman.

The nurse and doctor left and he was left alone with his thoughts. Despite his best efforts, he had become very aware of his vagina. So far, it had been a distant abstract concept. He'd managed to keep thoughts of it far from his mind. He felt perverted being in some strange woman's body even if it was his body. This wasn't what he had had in mind before when he dreamed of losing his virginity and entering a woman's body. Never like this. This was entering a woman's deeper than any man had gone before.

There was a knock at the door followed by Sam and Dean returning.

"We do this, you have to do as you're told. When we trained, we had to give absolute obedience. No questions. We didn't rescue your ass for you to get it killed ignoring orders." Dean growled in that gravelly serious voice he often used.

He nodded and started pulling out the IV. "Absolutely, could you hand me my clothes?"

"Err why?"

"I just gave them fake ID a couple of minutes ago and they're probably running it right now."

Dean looked alarmed but rushed to grab Ted's stuff while Sam ducked his head out the door. "You don't know how to put a spirit to rest but you know how to get fake ID? What were you into before those witches?" Dean grumbled.

"Unemployed in my parents basement playing first person shooter games or trolling message boards." Ted took the clothes and quickly scooted the jeans up over his hips under Dean's scrutiny.

"Seriously? With a body like that?"

Ted whipped off the hospital gown and pulled on the shirt without bothering with a bra. Sam blushed and Dean smirked. "I'm not very good with people." Ted answered awkwardly.

"I like you." Dean grinned. "No shoes?"

"Can't find 'em." Ted took the Swiss army knife out of her- no his, out of his pocket and cut off the hospital bracelet.

"All clear." Sam told them. "We should take the back stairwell." They hustled through the empty corridor and through the heavy fire door into the stairwell and headed down one floor. Going through a second fire door, they exited into the parking lot to a black 60's muscle car.

"This isn't a big town, they'll be onto you quickly. We should go get your stuff first."

"Knight's Inn."

"Where's your room key?"

Ted grimaced. "Lost it."

"Of course you did. You know anything about picking locks?"

AN: What do you think? Horrible? Am I spoon feeding too much? For the record, I'm being a little ambiguous about Ted's true gender on purpose. Sorry if it's annoying. Did you like any parts of this?


	3. Welcome To Womanhood

AN: FYI this is set in Season 2 in case it wasn't obvious. Here's another chapter. A little longer than the last, but this is where I wanted to cut it. I'm never really sure where to start and end chapters. Alright, I'll stop trying to convince you what a shitty writer I am. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I own you. Wait, did I just say that out loud? *blush* I don't own anything but this plot and an OC with gender confusion. Supernatural and all the rest of it isn't mine.

Welcome To Womanhood

Chapter 2

Two towns over, they stopped to get a motel room with two beds and a cot. Ted insisted on stopping for a two minute pit stop in the motel bathroom. He was still bra-less and he had an outfit he hadn't tried out at the bar yet. Maybe he was insane or maybe he was influenced by the previous arousal that day. But he didn't foresee a cure in his future. He was going to be a woman for a long time. He had lost the advantage of strength being a man. Maybe it was time he started learning about the advantages of being a woman? He had picked up this hot red dress two weeks ago and he hadn't tried it on again since the store he had bought it from.

He stared in the mirror for the first time. He'd seen his reflection a few times and had looked away in shame every time. This time, he really looked. Was his identity him or his body? Take away his body, at his core, was he really a man? Maybe identity and gender were separate. Maybe... he felt as though he were admitting he was gay to begin with. Was he? Maybe that was why he had been a 23 year old virgin? No. There was nothing wrong with being gay. He just wasn't gay. But now... he hadn't been attracted to a woman since his body had been changed. He couldn't ever recall imagining a dick penetrating him in all the years he could remember. It hadn't just been an abstract idea. It had been vivid. Too vivid. Too explicit. Too shocking. He wanted to lock that thought back up and deny that it ever existed. But was that sensible?

Did the new body come with its own sexuality and attraction? Did sexual orientation come from the mind or the body or the spirit? He didn't know. But life was short and he was in this body. And the truth was that, this body was attracted to men. He could deny it all he wanted. But looking in that mirror, the truth was staring him right in the face.

The woman in the mirror was pretty. The sort of woman that would have made his heart stutter when he was in his old body. Thick dark blond locks, sweet bluish grey eyes and a soft jaw line. Her eyes were tense and stressed. He would have wanted to make her smile. He made her smile. The smile didn't reach her eyes.

He turned off the light and left the bathroom. The look was incomplete. No make-up and the heels weren't as strappy as he'd picture a woman wearing this dress. But it fit and he remembered enough about being a man to know it didn't really matter. His legs were still smooth from his efforts a few days ago. It would do.

Dean and Sam's eyebrows raised when they saw Ted come out of the bathroom. Ted was determined not to look cowed despite how he felt. "What?"

"Wuh... different. You er... you like nice. What's the occasion?" Dean mumbled and Sam nodded politely under floppy hair.

Suddenly, this seemed like a really bad idea, but Ted was too proud to admit it. Even to himself. He pulled money and ID and a credit card out of his bag and slipped them into his bra. He looked up to see the hunters watching intently with interest. Maybe he should bring a purse? But he didn't have a purse. He should have bought a purse when he bought the dress. This was a bad idea but his pride and stubbornness was kicking in. "What now?"

"Nothing. You ready to go?" Dean snapped. He threw the door open and left. Sam gave an apologetic smile and held the door open for Ted.

Yeah, this was a really bad idea.

They walked into the bar and grill and found seats facing the door from the back. The bar had pool tables off to one side. And a juke box. That looked like a good idea. Ted bent down as though to fix his shoe while inconspicuously slipping money out of his bra.

Just then the attractive waitress showed up with menu's. "Hi, my name's Stacy, can I get you anything to drink while you look over your menu's?"

"Two beers." Sam answered and gestured to Ted.

"Apple juice." The waitress's flirty smile became a thoroughly amused grin.

"I'm sorry. Can I see some ID's kids?"

Dean and Sam passed an annoyed look at Ted as they pulled out their wallets. Ted ducked his head in apology and bent over swiping his ID out. Money and ID in bras was proving to be a lot more awkward than he had imagined. Next purchase was definitely a purse. They each handed over their ID to the waitress and she perused them before handing them back.

"Sorry, about that. I'm not used to 23 year old women ordering apple juice in a bar. Especially not at ten o'clock at night." She said glancing at her watch.

"I just got out of hospital, thought I should take it easy." Ted grumbled.

Stacy's eyes widened as though she were finding a connection and drawing unknown conclusions. "Oh! I didn't even think of that. I'm sorry, I'll be right back with your drinks." She hurried away.

"What was that?" Ted asked defensively. "What was that oh for? What is she thinking?"

Sam chuckled and Dean mastered an innocent look. Ted shot them a dirty look and got up.

"Where're you going?"

"Juke box." He pointed. "You can talk behind my back some more while I'm gone." He muttered.

Flipping through the options, he wasn't impressed. A lot of country and they weren't even down south or midwest. He was near ready to give up when a song caught his eye. An old favourite.

"Hey sweetheart. You want me to help you find a love ballad?" Ted looked up to a stranger leaning a hand against the wall blocking his path back to his table. The man had put on his most enticing grin. Without the heels, he would have been about six inches taller, but the stranger was still intimidating, even with the heels. The way he leaned over Ted was extremely dominant and familiar. Of which he had no right to presume either. A small fire lit in Ted's belly. He fed his dollar bill into the machine in answer and selected his song.

With a smile, he looked up at the man. "Nope. I got it thanks." The sounds of Bad Religion's 21st Century Digital Boy drummed up and burst out over the speakers. Ted turned his eyes back to selecting more songs without watching for a response. Fortunately, there were two more songs that he liked on the juke box. The Who's Bab O'Riley and Whipping Post by the Allman Brothers. He turned to leave but the man hadn't moved. He was atiently waiting for Ted with an odd grin on his face.

"The name's Jake. What's your name?"

This wasn't going as Ted had thought. He had experienced passing attraction to a number of men (embarrassingly, Sam and Dean included), but this one just managed to instantly annoy him and get under his skin. He paused before ordering. "Look Jake, I'm sure you're nice, but I'm with them. You wanna let me by." He pointed in the direction of the boys at his table and Dean and Sam conveniently smiled and waved back.

Jake cleared his throat and let Ted by. Ted took his seat as multiple eyes followed him. He checked his walk. He had taken the time to ask the lady in the shoe store for lessons, the clerk had been demonstrably excited. Telling him that usually women who didn't have a clue how to walk in heels just didn't bother wearing heels and never asked. But she had been a thorough teacher. Ted was pretty sure he was walking right.

"You don't usually wear dresses like that do you?" Dean asked bluntly when Ted sat down.

Ted blushed but didn't answer.

"Why are you wearing that dress? You obviously don't like the attention you're drawing." Sam asked more gently.

Ted cleared his throat and went with partial truth. "After those witches I realized I hadn't really been living. I'd been hiding in my parents basement. I'm taking more chances. Stuff I probably should have done when I was a teenager and just... I don't know. I was just really bad at anything social. My excuse was that I had time. I had nothing but time. My life got wiped out. Realized I don't have all the time in the world and I'm long past due to jump out of the nest. Does that make any sense?"

Sam had empathetic eyes watching Ted intently. Dean had a grin. "This is you jumpin' outta the nest?"

No, he didn't get it. "I'm not gonna see these people again am I?" Ted waved around the room. "What do I care what they think of my dress? I like it. I've never been in a bar before. No time like the present right?" And suddenly, Ted was regretting going with the truth.

"You've never been in a bar before?" Sam huffed in annoyance at Dean's question. Ted just avoided Dean's eyes. "I'll take that as a no. You ever gotten drunk?"

Ted wanted to wipe that smug smile off the prick's face. A dirty look was written all over his face when he looked back at Dean. "Yeah, my parents would'a loved that." He said sarcastically. He was really starting to get her nerves.

"Man, what did you look like in high school?" What did he look like in high school? Not like this. Not like this at all.

"Look, could we just drop this?" As though reading Ted's mind, Stacy returned with their drinks just then. What took her so long? Ted scowled.

"You ready to order?"

"Yeah, can I get the cheeseburger with fries?"

"House salad."

Ted quickly scanned the menu and then saw something that made him grin. "Spicy chicken enchilada's."

"You sure? They're not kidding, it's really spicy." The waitress double checked as she took their menu's.

Ted nodded enthusiastically. Stacy told them she'd be right back with their orders and left. Dean was still smiling around his beer. Ted ignored him.

"How come no guy's scooped you up at 23? Even gigantor got laid in high school." Dean snickered. Sam shot him a bitch face.

"You've known each other that long?"

Sam chuckled and explained. "My whole life. We're actually brothers."

"How'd you get into hunting?"

Sam was about to answer when Dean interrupted. "Uh uh. You tell us what those witches did if you want the scoop on us."

Adrenalin sparked. Ted hadn't been ready for the topic to turn so bluntly to that. And all of the confusion and angst tied up in what the witches had done. He was a mess of feelings that he didn't know where to begin picking through. "I'm not telling you that! What those witches did-" He paused. "I'm not going to talk about that." Ted insisted.

"Did they make you prettier?" Dean joked.

"Yeah." Ted admitted. That much was easy to admit. "Look, I don't want to talk about this. It's humiliating enough that it happened. I'm not-" His voice broke and tears rushed up to the edges of his eyes. "I-I can't." Ted hurried out of his seat and trotted to the washroom. Their voices called out behind her and she barely averted the men's washroom before finding the women's. Where... there was a line up. She held her hair back and turned on the tap and slapped cold water up on her face. In nature's compassion, the water was cooling. Her face- his face. His face met his-no her's...

What the hell was he? Was he a man or a woman or cross dresser? As soon as he felt more like a woman, he was reminded that he was really a man. Dean seemed to be pushing every button that reminded him that he was a man dressed in women's clothes. A fraud. He swallowed down the hard lump in his throat.

"Here honey." An older woman in line for the toilets handed her a tissue. "You look like you need a good a cry."

Ted smiled a watery smile before breaking down in tears. He hadn't cried in all this time and the woman was more right than she knew. He really needed a good fucking cry. Should he just accept he was now a woman and just go with it? Or was he kidding himself? Would he always be a fraud trying to be a woman?

"Oh sweetie, come here." The woman pulled Ted into her arms and he found himself breaking down sobbing. "Shh, shh, shh, shh." The woman hushed her. "It's okay. Men just don't get it sometimes. They just don't get it."

And therein lay the problem. Ted was a man and he didn't get it. He didn't know how to be a woman. But he sure was doing well at the crying part. He really was a girl. He snarled inwardly at himself. He pulled away. "I gotta get back out there."

"Here," another woman stepped forward. She pulled out some make-up from her purse. "Wash your face and I'll help you out real quick. We've got similar colouring."

A few minutes later Ted headed out of the ladies room. Eyes barely noticeably puffy. Sam was staring at his plate and Dean was chowing down on his burger, looking as though he was quite literally in love with it. His chicken enchilada waited. Sam finally noticed her approaching and Dean followed his brother's attention. Dean smiled around his burger.

"Promise we won't bring that up again." Sam assured Ted. Then frowned. "Where'd you find the make-up?"

Dean's eyes trailed over Ted's feminine body in the tight fitting dress. "There's nowhere to hide make-up."

A smile raised on one side of Ted's lips. "We all have our secrets Dean." She said in a low seductive voice she didn't know she had in her.

Sam looked amused but Dean's face became serious and bewildered before groaning. "You can't do that to me."

Ted sat down to her dinner and for the first time, she was feeling a little bit less like a fraud. The enchilada's were good. Didn't taste right with the apple juice. Sam had ceased staring at his plate and seemed somewhat settled. A call came in over Dean's cell.

"Yeah?" He paused and put one finger to his ear to block the noise in the bar and grill. "Hey Bobby," his eyes moved to Ted and then he frowned. "Really." He glanced at his brother who looked miffed. Seconds ticked by. "Yeah... yeah... thanks man... Yeah, we'll check in with you soon Bobby." He hung up and his eyes focused on her. "Couple of hunters remember you from about a month back."

Ted narrowed his eyes at Dean. "What of it?"

"Said those witches did a real number on you. Turned you into a head case talking crazy. You snuck out and disappeared on them. They were worried you were gonna hurt yourself. Should we be worried Ted?"

Ted dropped his fork and leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. Barely remembering to keep his knees together. "I'm fine." He gritted his teeth together.

"No one knows for sure what those witches did to you. Just said you were caged up. You told them 3 days but they say you had to've been in there a whole lot longer. More like years longer. Did you even ever see the inside of a high school Ted?"

He leaned forward and placed two hands on the table holding eye contact with Dean. Leaning in he said two words. "Fuck you." He shoved his chair back and dropped some money on the table before leaving.

"Ted! Dean, do something!"

"She's a head case. We're taking a head case with us on the road? She'll get us all killed."

Sam hurried after Ted. "Would you stop running away already?"

She came to a dead stop and looked up at him. "What do you want me to do? I don't think they're right. But sanity is one of those things that's impossible to prove. I thought you guys were gonna train me. And if you're not, I better move on and figure out how to hunt witches on my own. I'm gonna hunt every last witch down and I'm gonna fuck them up good. There's nothing and I mean nothing that I'd rather be doing with my life. I don't have much to look forward to in this goddamn life. So maybe, I'll throw caution to the wind. I'm a good lookin' girl. There's lots of guys that can show me a good time. What of it? It's not like I have something better waiting around the corner." She kept her voice low but her eyes were fierce and her tone powerful.

He looked pained for her. She shook her head at him. "Oh no, mister. Don't you pity me!" She hissed. "I don't need or want your pity."

Without warning, he pressed a hand to her back and led her outside in front of the bar and grill. He gripped her shoulders and bent his knees to look her in the eyes. "Listen to me. I've been there. I've been where you are right now. You keep that up, you'll get yourself killed. And maybe me and my brother with you. I can't take that chance. You do have good things to look forward to. I don't know what they did to you, but I can tell you that you can move past this. This dress..." he gestured down her body. "It looks amazing on you. But it's obviously not you. You want to get better with people, this isn't the way to go about it. I want you to ride with us. But I can't be in your corner with this attitude. Do you understand me?"

She stared up at him as she chewed on his words inside her mind. "I'll wear whatever the hell I want to wear." She said slowly. "But I can knock off the attitude. I'll stop running if you guys stop asking what the witches did."

His eyes didn't lose their intensity though. "Tomorrow morning, I'm gonna start training you in the woods. You're going to listen to me right? You're going to do as I say without question? Because it's going to be hard. We need you strong and fast and able to defend yourself."

"You have my word."

A boyish smile spread across his face and he pulled her against his side in a hug. "You're gonna be alright Ted. Is that short for Theodora?"

"Sure." He paused but didn't question her as he headed back into the bar.

Dean had a disgusted look on his face but didn't say anything. He said it later at the motel while Ted was in the bathroom where she could hear them over the water from shower through the thin walls.

She missed the first part but caught muffled snippets. "-got a hard on for the crazy chick!"

"I don't-I'm not into her like that. I respect her. She didn't have any training, but she already knew the answer was in-"

She worked conditioner into her hair as she listened. Why did it seem the more time she spent around men, the more she felt like a woman and less like a fraud in a woman's body? The question of her identity rattled around inside her again and she shrugged it off. She was done over thinking this. She was going to be staying a woman indefinitely. The time to be homophobic was over. It was better to accept what her body was expecting and let the past go as best she could. Another part of her, the old part she assumed, called himself many nasty names.

"-train her? The girl just almost drowned. Can't train her until-"

Ted didn't want to hear this. She focused on her body. She looked down her body and decided to explore while the conditioner sat in her hair. Her body faced into the shower, hot water running down her. Finger tips traced from her shoulders, down the slope to her breasts and circled her areola's before her nipples. A small groan escaped her lips and her eyes shot wide when she caught herself. It felt so very different from how she remembered in her old body. It was all so new and unfamiliar and tantalizing. Why had she avoided touching herself this long?

"-gets hurt, it will be on your head Sam. Just bone her and let her go already."

That would have hurt if she weren't in the middle of touching herself. Filthy images of Sam's mouth suckling her breast and large, calloused hands around her waist tugged on her like a rope leading from her navel. "Ugghh..." One hand continued to rub her nipple as the other followed the curve of her breast, down her abdomen and met with her hot centre. "Mmm..." Escaped just below the sound of the shower.

This was a bad idea. Two strange men were in the room next to her and- God that just made it that much more delicious. She did the lock the door didn't she? Yeah. Yeah she locked the door.

Her fingers brought her to orgasm and she let out the tiniest whimper that could have been a sad cry if someone were listening in. The wide warmth of her body opening up spreading out through her torso, limbs and extremities was a surprise. It had a different feel to his orgasms as a man. It took more effort, but years of quietly masturbating in the bathroom, racing to come before someone needed to use the room helped to guide him in the right direction. Different body but the rhythm wasn't so different.

"This is a really bad idea."

"I'll take full responsibility for her." Sam insisted.

"Anything happens to her, that's a lot of guilt you're gonna be feelin' Sam."

There was a moment of reflection before an answer. "I know."

A sobering thought. Ted realized she was kneeling in the tub, having dropped to her knees at some point while masturbating. It was more difficult to remain standing during an orgasm in this body. Good to know.

She washed the conditioner out of her hair and pushed the shower tap off. Towelling off, she wrapped her hair up and brushed her teeth. Her eyes caught her body in the mirror. This was her body. She was a woman. And this was her body. It was so much to adjust to. She would have to accept that. She unwrapped her towel and let it drop to the floor. It was a good body. Full, heavy breasts lacking some of the perkiness smaller breasts had to offer. A tapered waist. Full hips. Her legs were out of view-

Three violent knocks pounded on the bathroom door. Ted let out a high pitched yelp and her heart sped up wickedly quickly. "You done yet? We wanna catch some zed's." Dean boomed through the door. Dick.

"Hold on! Just gotta dry my hair a bit." There was a silence before she picked up the hair dryer and pulled a round brush out of her bag. Following instructions she had found on youtube, she pulled sections of hair onto the brush and dragged it through slowly as she angled the dryer over the brush. It was still a little damp underneath next her neck, but she hurried out of the bathroom when she was nearly finished. She didn't want to hold up the bathroom with Dean waiting on the other side any longer than necessary.

"Next time, I'm using the bathroom before you." He glowered pushing past her.

Sam looked at her sadly. "What?" She inquired.

He rubbed the back of his neck, slightly embarrassed. "Jessie, my fiancee... she used to hold up the bathroom like that."

Ted nodded slightly. "Where's she?"

He shook his head once. "She uh... she died."

Her stomach dropped. Well, that had to be a sore subject. "Witches?" She asked as she packed up her bag crouching down over it.

"Demons."

She looked up at him in alarm. "There's demons too? Spirits and demons and witches-"

"Oh my!" Dean said in a shrill, sarcastic voice from the bathroom door through his toothbrush. He pulled the toothbrush out of his mouth to speak. "Hang on Dorothy, you're in for wild ride if you're sticking around." He said obnoxiously and went back into the bathroom to gob a mouthful of spit into the sink. "And it's ain't gonna be pretty."

Wearing a t-shirt and yoga pants, Ted turned her back on him and slipped into the fold-up cot someone had put sheets and the pillow and a blanket on it already. Probably Sam. She would have thanked him but really, she just didn't want to deal with either of them right now. Exhaustion catching up to her. It seemed she blinked and sleep came.

Usually, Ted's dreams were filled with witches and cages and her parents begging her to come home. At least they had been since escaping the cage. This night, her dreams were seas of breasts and penis'. She wasn't sure which she preferred of the two, but it all felt very good.

"Wakey, wakey sunshine!" Dean announced as bright light slammed her senses. He was unceremoniously opening the curtains welcoming the sunny day on the other side. Outside, Ted recognized the pentatonic scale of a Hermit Thrush singing outside. Yeah, she really was a nerd.

She rolled her eyes at her own thoughts and pulled the pillow out from under her head to cover her face. "Five more minutes..." She groaned. The pillow smelled suspiciously musty.

"No chance sweetheart. You've got your first day of training and you're gonna want to be up before he gets back with your breakfast if you want our help."

She shot up as she remembered what the plan was. Ted threw back the covers and ripped open her bag to pull out a change of clothes and rush into the bathroom. She heard Dean snicker behind her but ignored the jerk. He really did have a severe case of older brother syndrome.

She was just coming out of the bathroom when Sam arrived. He gave her a small smile. "I got muffins and coffee."

"Thanks!" She exclaimed fervently.

Dean looked between the two of them and muttered to himself in bemused disgust.

She skimmed between the bed and the fold-up cot and took a seat at the table grabbing a muffin. She was hungrier than she realized but concluded she wasn't eating it that fast when she saw that Dean had finished his and was onto his second. Her eyes widened in surprise. He raised an eyebrow when he felt her eyes staring at him. "What?"

"Nothing." She looked away and focused on her own muffin. Obviously not convinced, but he chose to drop the subject. He finished his second muffin before she could finish her first and she was eating quickly.

"You knew how to hold your gun. What happened with the shotgun?" Sam asked her.

She finished her mouthful and then answered. "I only have training on my gun. It's the only gun I've ever fired."

He nodded thoughtfully. "You haven't been using it long." It was a statement. Not a question. Was she really that obvious?

"The guy that ran the shooting range offered to show me how to fire my weapon personally. I thought you had to pay for lessons. He was really nice about it."

Dean snorted. "I'll bet."

Sam shot him a bitch face.

Ted blushed realizing just how stupid and naïve she just sounded. How did she not catch on back at that firing range? She had still been shaky from escaping the witches. Her mind was still struggling to make sense of reality. But there was no making sense of reality. Life was random. It always had been.

"After breakfast, I'll go over the weapons with you. Safety lessons first, just in case your instructor missed anything." Sam explained factually.

There was a long pause, she realized they were both waiting on her to acknowledge his words. "Right. Safety first and last." Dean rolled his eyes at her words. She frowned.

After breakfast, Dean produced a bag of weapons and laid them out on Sam's made bed. Dean and Ted's beds lay rumpled.

Sam started out with a long lecture on gun safety with a few demonstrations. He continued with instructions on how to pull each gun apart down to individual pieces and how to put them back together again. Then instructed her to practice until she could do it without looking.

"When do I get to shoot them?"

"When you can prove to me that you know these guns well enough to pull them apart and put them back together again."

"Hardass." Dean taunted from his spot on his bed watching television.

Sam shot him yet another bitch face. She noticed he did that a lot.

Unperturbed, Dean continued watching television with a shit eating grin. "Honey you're gonna regret training with us before Sam is through with you."

"Knock it off Dean. I'm heading out to get lunch. Any requests?"

"Pie. Don't forget my pie."

"Beer, pie. Ted?"

Distracted with fitting the slide back onto the barrel, that was decidedly giving her a fight, she muttered a: "Huh?" Without looking up.

"Food? Any requests?"

"The edible kind." She muttered frowning down at the gun, disconcerted by her efforts. Why wasn't it fitting?

"Right. I'll be back in a bit."

The door closed and Ted looked up. "Where's he going?"

Dean snickered. "Edible kind."

Ted blanched. "Shit, what did I say that about?"

"You've got a dirty mind kid." He got up and went to the bathroom.

Through the bathroom door she heard him urinating and a low groan of relief. Obnoxious jerk. She grimaced and returned her attention to the slide and barrel on the Colt M1911A1. This thing was a real bitch. An idea occurred to her and she tried lifting the thingamgig she had seen before fitting the slide over the barrel. It still didn't work. Maybe she should have paid closer attention to the parts names when he was saying them. She took it apart and tried putting it together again. No one said it was going to be easy.

"Your coffee's cold from this morning." Dean observed. Ted wasn't sure how much time had passed. She had gotten the slide on but was now struggling with loading the clip.

She didn't look up when she answered. "I don't drink coffee."

"Why not?"

"I don't like it." She murmured. "I drink water, milk and juice."

"Like a little kid?"

She growled in frustration with the gun.

"Sorry, it was just a question. No need to growl at me."

"What?" She looked up at him then realized he had been talking to her. "Oh not... whatever you were talking about. This thing is giving me a hard time. I'll figure it out."

Something seemed to clue in for him. "When I ask you questions when you're not paying attention, you subconsciously answer me. Like you have no filter." Ideas seemed to spring up in him right in front of her eyes.

"Oh no you don't!"

He nodded. Would this guy ever stop grinning? "Oh yeah. Yeah, I like this."

She threw a pillow at his head which he plucked from the air and leaned back on a little. "What are you even watching?" She squinted at the television as though it were foreign to her.

"Dr Sexy."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Don't judge me." He said defensively and returned to watching his show.

Smug, she returned to the clip. It slid in perfectly. "Aha!" She said softly with a hint of satisfaction in her voice.

She'd figure this all out. Just give her time.

AN: Okay, onto the next chapter. Is this FTW or #FAIL? Or somewhere in between? You know, I think I prefer going down in a hail of bullets than to be a luke warm in between. I'll shut up now.


End file.
